Question: In mid summer I cut back half way the part of my Shasta daisy that was over hanging the lawn. Now I notice baby plants along the cut stems of the Shasta daisy but only on the part I cut back. Is this unusual? Can these baby plants be removed and rooted?

Answer: These baby plants are called proliferations. They occur occasionally on some perennials even when the flower stem is not cut back. For example, on some varieties of daylilies proliferations occur much more abundantly if the top of the flower stem is removed during flowering or immediately thereafter, such as happened with your Shasta Daisy. Examples of perennial plants which often proliferate when cut back are: Salvia, Lychnis, Evening Primrose, Shasta Daisy, Yarrow, Gaillardia, and of course Daylilies. I have also seen proliferations on non-hardy Pennisetum setaceum Rubrum - the red-leaved fountain grass.

Proliferations can be carefully removed, inserted in rooting hormone, potted in a light soil mix and rooted. In many cases they need to be protected the first winter. I have found that it is often best to remove the entire stem with all of the proliferations and detach a small portion of stem with each proliferation when rooting them.

Question: I hear you talk on the radio show about core aerators and slit seeders. My rental center does not have slit seeders. Instead they said I could use a core aerator to plant my grass seed. My neighbor has a lawn thatcher which he said that I could borrow. What is the difference between these three machines and what do you recommend to plant my grass seed?

Answer:  All three are motorized devices that are designed for use on an established lawn - not a new lawn. In one pass a slit seeder is a device that makes little furrows in the ground and plants grass seed into those furrows below the soil surface. Slit seeders are designed specifically for seed planting. Of the three machines, they do the best job. On large lawns slit seeders complete the job much faster.

A core aerator removes little round plugs of soil an inch or so long and perhaps a quarter of an inch wide. Compacted soils are often core aerated once a year, usually in the fall, to allow moisture, air and nutrients to reach the grass roots rather than running off. Because core aerators leave the little plugs of soil that they extract on top of the soil, several passes of a core aerator can do a reasonable job of loosening the soil for a seed bed and covering the seed - certainly much better than can usually be done by hand. The negatives of using a core aerator to plant seed are:

1. Seed must be spread separately; almost always before core aeration.
2. Seed coverage with soil will not be total, only partial.
3. The seed that falls down into the cores is often too deep into the soil to germinate.
4. The mechanics of several passes of a core aerator can destroy a small percentage of the seed.

A thatching machine is nothing more than an automated rake which very vigorously tears out the old grass foliage and loosens the surface soil of the lawn. Thatching machines work best where there is a lot of build up of dead grass to be removed. After thatching, a lot of raking is required. If you have loosened the top surface of the soil, after seeding, excellent coverage of the grass seed with top soil is easily achieved simply by raking in the grass seed.

If you are going to use these machines in combination, thatch first, then slit seed and finally core aerate. If you are going to thatch as well as slit seed, thatch away only the grass tops; it is not necessary to loosen the soil surface with a thatcher. If you are just going to thatch and core aerate, thatch more deeply into the soil surface, next sow the seed, cover it by raking and finally core aerate.

In all cases, fertilizer and seed can be applied one right after the other; which one comes first doesn't matter.

Question:  The leaves on my Dogwood tree are mostly brown and look dead. Is there any way to determine if my Dogwood is alive, dead or something in between?

Answer:  Don't feel like the "Lone Ranger." This year the leaves of lots of dogwoods are showing signs of stress. If your dogwood has little round flower buds at the branch tips, those branches are probably ok.

The following holds true for almost all types of trees. If you scrape the bark on the stem and the underneath is green and plump that branch is probably ok. If the bark is shriveled or brown underneath, that stem is dead. Also on dead branches, leaves usually hang on later than the normal defoliation time -often well into the winter. Live branches drop their leaves normally.

Answer:  I suspect you have the Seven Son Flower (Heptacodium miconioides). The best is yet to come. Those fragrant blooms are going to mature into quite a display of maroon seed husks.